Software development is evolving away from the client-server model toward network-based processing systems that provide access to data and services via the Internet or other networks. In contrast to traditional systems that host networked applications on dedicated server hardware, a “cloud” computing model allows applications to be provided over the network “as a service” supplied by an infrastructure provider. The infrastructure provider typically abstracts the underlying hardware and other resources used to deliver a customer-developed application so that the customer no longer needs to operate and support dedicated server hardware. The cloud computing model can often provide substantial cost savings to the customer over the life of the application because the customer no longer needs to provide dedicated network infrastructure, electrical and temperature controls, physical security and other logistics in support of dedicated server hardware.
Multi-tenant cloud-based architectures have been developed to improve collaboration, integration, and community-based cooperation between customer tenants without sacrificing data security. Generally speaking, multi-tenancy refers to a system where a single hardware and software platform simultaneously supports multiple user groups (also referred to as “organizations” or “tenants”) from a common data storage element (also referred to as a “multi-tenant database”). The multi-tenant design provides a number of advantages over conventional server virtualization systems. First, the multi-tenant platform operator can often make improvements to the platform based upon collective information from the entire tenant community. Additionally, because all users in the multi-tenant environment execute applications within a common processing space, it is relatively easy to grant or deny access to specific sets of data for any user within the multi-tenant platform, thereby improving collaboration and integration between applications and the data managed by the various applications. The multi-tenant architecture therefore allows convenient and cost effective sharing of similar application feature software s between multiple sets of users.
Both within and outside of on-demand or multi-tenant computing environments, changes in the cascading style sheet (CSS) or other Javascript™ code can affect the visual aspects of the user experience. In a large code base where several development teams typically work on different aspects of the code, a change intended to improve one area can have unintended consequences in another area of the user interface (UI).
For example, when the visual appearance of a feature is changed, the modified code may be shared by other developers. Problematically, is it often difficult to know at the time of the modification the various ways in which that same code may be used by other development teams. Mature and robust systems have been developed for managing the functionality of code developed in a multiple team environment, such as Selenium™ 1.0+WebDriver available at http://docs.seleniumhq.org/projects/webdriver/. However, presently known automated tools do not adequately manage the testing and debugging of the visual or stylistic aspects of the UI across multiple development teams.
Systems and methods are thus needed which overcome the foregoing shortcomings.